California Magazine published an interview with me in their Spring 2013 issue on why I chose to print and hand-bind copies of Oakland in Popular Memory. In the interview, we discuss the great print vs. digital debate among other topics. Read the full interview here.

In the last month an a half, Bay Area Underground has been covered by a number of publications including: San Francisco Magazine, Berkeleyside, Oakland Local, and KQED. And today, the Huffington Post ran an excerpt from the book with a slideshow of some of the photos by Joe Sciarrillo and Matt Werner. Click the image below to read the article. Also, if you’re in the Bay Area, check out the book release parties on March 7 and March 13, 2013.

Bay Area Underground, the first photobook to cover the Occupy movement in the Bay Area and also the Oscar Grant protests, launches on January 1, 2013! Purchase the book from Thought Publishing or your local independent bookstore.

About the book:

From 2008-2012, Joe Sciarrillo and Matt Werner were on the ground photographing the major social movements and cultural events in the San Francisco Bay Area. This photobook is a collection of their best photos of protests and social movements including the Oscar Grant protests, Occupy Oakland, Occupy San Francisco, May Day marches, Free Gaza, and Free Burma protests.

Also included in the book are photos of Bay Area cultural events like the San Francisco Giants winning the 2010 and 2012 World Series, Bay to Breakers, Oakland’s First Friday Art Murmur, and Carnaval. This book chronicles many events not heavily reported on by the mainstream press, and it gives a unique lens through which to view life in the Bay Area during President Barack Obama’s first term.

See a sample gallery of photos from the book here.

2012 was the year that Oakland gained wider recognition for its art and music scene. Read more about the series on my blog: http://djmattwerner.blogspot.com/2013/01/oakland-local-runs-5-part-series.html

“It wasn’t until college that Matt Werner began to truly understand the meaning of his hometown. He remembers it vividly: He was at UC Berkeley, chatting with someone at a party, when she asked where he was from. He told her Oakland, which was met with an ‘Oakland? We don’t go into Oakland.'” -Ellen Cushing

Read the full article “Oakland, in Its Own Words” by Ellen Cushing on the East Bay Express website.

Purchase Oakland in Popular Memory on Amazon.com or directly from Thought Publishing.